Alfred Plack was a disgruntled man that received solace from a very small list of earthly things. As was the norm any items on that small list of things that brought the faintest hint of a smirk to Alfred’s face were nowhere to be found, but what was present were many items from the almost infinite list of things that irked Alfred ever so much.
Alfred hated inconveniencing himself, and he was in the middle of a highly inconvenient errand at the request of a friend. Alfred hated his friends, they had always been so needy, and he was uncertain why he even bothered to have them at all. Luckily he had just dropped off his friend as was the result of his errand so that he at least had the car to himself and was not bothered by the incessant chatter of small talk; which he also hated. He also hated favors, and this errand he had performed was in fact a favor by his friend, a favor that will never get repaid, because they never do, which is part of what spawned some of his loathing for them. The list went on, and Alfred was fuming; he hated Connecticut, and he was summoned into the middle of the blasted state, but was now back in Rhode Island, which he still hated, but to a slightly lesser extent, just because that is where his Jamestown house stood. His house, Alfred shook his head at the very thought of it; not quite as fancy, big, or lavish as he had always dreamed for himself, but that was the best he could do. That was the best he could do because that was the price of the house was what he could afford given his salary; a salary for a job, which as one could guess, he hated.
Alfred was a veterinarian at the pet care department of a worldwide chain of pet stores, but he once had ambitions of starting his own practice; a dream that had long since died, and for that he hated himself just a little. To top it all off on this morning it looked like Alfred was going to be late to work and he despised being late because everyone stared at you when you walked through the door and tried to figure out what he had been up to the night before which lead to his tardiness; or at least that is what he figured they thought.
“Great,” Alfred shouted as he slammed his steering wheel with the palms of his hands, “more freaking traffic. Why didn’t they just build this bridge with three lanes to begin with? It connect two states, of coarse people are going to use it.”
Alfred looked around and his chances of arriving no more than an hour late to work became clear. The bridge was backed up and no one was moving faster than a sloth on a hot summer’s day. “What is going on? Probably just some granny who can’t find her gas peddle. It is next to the break Ethel and I am sure you are familiar with that one. Get your glaucoma ridden eyes off the road and into a nursing home.”
Alfred continued his rant while a fellow driver turned on his blinker and tried to merge into Alfred’s lane because his current lane was closing due to the blockage. “Not gonna happen,” Alfred hisses into his window as he pulled up to no more than a hairs width from the car in front of him, almost causing a second traffic jam factor for those behind him. “There it is, the great cause of the traffic. Everyone body take a look. God damned rubberneckers, we have all seen a spun around car before.”
Just then, while belligerently berating all those around him, Alfred spotted the faces of the two in the green sedan that from the looks of it came close to teetering off of the edge. A boy and a girl. The boy behind the wheel, now leaning over and holding who looked to be his girlfriend. The girl gently sobbing, but with a smile on her face. He looks like my son, Alfred thought to himself as a tear welled in his own eye. Alfred had not talked to his son, Jonny in two years since they had a falling out. Jonny had been off to the University of Connecticut to study engineering and when home he stayed with his mother. Why had he let them grow so far apart? It was probably because Jonny could not stand Alfred belittling everything that was in the vicinity, but that was all that Alfred knew how to do. Why was he filled with so much hate? He did not know, but he was not going to lose his son. That boy in the car came so close, what if Jonny was that boy? The boy behind the wheel was probably just an inexperienced driver, Alfred thought, and he couldn’t handle the car under these conditions, but Jonny is no more experienced. Jonny takes this bridge all the time. Alfred reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone; he dialed.